Girlfriends to Boyfriends
by Skylark Evanson
Summary: "You've- You've dated?" asks the veteran with a half-choked laugh. He can believe that Sherlock has certain personal relations, with Molly, with Lestrade, and most certainly with Mrs. Hudson, but anything beyond an acquaintance, dare John consider the term "friend", baffles him. Sherlock can barely obtain "good flatmate" status.


**A/N: Was watching "Sherlock" and this is really my first attempt at writing it. It's kind of difficult, mostly because of sentence patterns and dialogue/dialect, but I'll do my best. Constructive criticism will help and I'd appreciate it.  
Note: Johnlock**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Sherlock, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.**

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**Girlfriends to Boyfriends**

John really does find it amusing how Sherlock can bend over a body and touch it and feel it and search the pockets and mess with the hair and skin and whatever bloodied or dried up wounds without any moral consequences upon his character. He's never seen a person, no, a human, quite like the masterpiece that's been placed before him.

Fingers prod through the jacket, feeling under the collar and along the neck, picking at the collar of the shirt and then immediately moving to the bottom of the slacks, searching for some sign of something; of what, John sincerely hasn't the slightest. Sherlock's deft fingers continue along, feeling the knees and then touch the corpse's hair. He then sniffs his hand suddenly afterwards before rubbing his gloved fingers together and standing up, his stiff posture making him seem like a skyscraper against the day's gray sky and opaque clouds.

His voice is almost as stiff as his posture, especially when on the case. "Her make-up, trace the make-up." He starts gesturing at his own face with some sort of puzzlement passing across his eyes and drawing his lips into creating strained words. "It's unique to her, hides her skin problem, eczema, I believe, the medication's in her over-sized handbag. But the make-up, it's custom. Some beauty parlor or shop, maybe in Yorkshire, I can't remember precisely." Those fingers thrum rhythmically across one of his sharply defined cheekbones. "Yes, yes..." And he begins to move away from Lestrade and John as the coroners move in to take the body away from the alleyway, but the former army medic follows swiftly behind him.

"How can you not remember?" asks John, first trying to compute why Sherlock can't access his ever-present memory banks. Second, he tries to recall a time when Sherlock ever needed to "remember" as opposed to just knowing something as an off-hand fact or having it as a subject of study. Beauty products seemed quite relevant to the consulting detective label he'd put on himself.

He flips a hand in Watson's general direction as if trying to wave off the question. "It was a girlfriend from a long time ago, such an irrelevant time, doesn't belong in the hard drive of my mind along with so many other simple matters." He shakes his head and stares into the buildings that are across the street, his eyes flitting this way and that as if doing a calculation in his head.

Something inside of John almost, sort of, flips a switch. Beyond hearing of Mycroft, this is the first time Sherlock has ever mentioned something more personal than his favorite cases, something he rarely speaks of even at this point in their relationship, if it can be called that. (John really can't shake the feeling that he's just there to keep Sherlock company. It's a bit ridiculous, but it keeps John entertained and gives his blog a subject, so he can't bring himself to complain.)

But a girlfriend. His mind laughs but his mouth stifles it. "You've- You've dated?" asks the veteran with a half-choked laugh because he can't strangle it all. He can believe that Sherlock has certain personal relations, with Molly, with Lestrade, and most certainly with Mrs. Hudson, but anything beyond an acquaintance, dare John consider the term "friend", baffles him. Sherlock can barely obtain "good flatmate" status with John, let alone really be considered a friend.

Well maybe it can go in one direction, because friendship is a two-way street. John does consider Sherlock to be his friend, but John does not believe that Sherlock thinks the same as him. Neither does Lestrade or Sally, but it is what it is.

"Yes, John. I have. You think I have no personal relations? Surely you've insulted me a number of ways on your blog, but-"

"Sherlock, I don't do that on purpose, you simply-"

"I make it easy on you, I understand." He begins moving again, waistcoat flowing out behind him as the wind tugs at his dark curls. "But yes, I'm capable of dating. I don't do it often, but I can."

"And- And you've had a girlfriend?" It shouldn't be as amusing as it is, but John can't imagine Sherlock trying to woo a woman. Ever.

Those eyes turn on Watson and there's something in them that John can't decipher- curiosity? anticipation? excitement? Whatever it is, it brings almost more questions than it does answers. And Sherlock responds with, "I've had plenty of girlfriends." And then he turns away and keeps moving with a purpose, putting one foot in front of the other at a relatively rapid pace.

While he's opening up, John figures he'll take his opportunity. "And were any of them serious?" he questions, walking quickly to try and keep up with his comrade, but he almost feels that twinge in his bad leg coming back despite the fact that he knows it won't.

"One or two, yes, but very short term, they lived with me for a bit but couldn't adjust to my habits, that's how it sometimes starts." His hands are shoved in his pockets. "And then they get so boring, never wanting to do anything fun. Just movies and dinner, never anything good. Such boring, normal people." The disgust is everywhere in his voice.

"Your version of fun is also looking at dead people."

A smirk. "So is yours."

There's a pause. "Fair enough." John continues to follow.

Between them, silence falls. The rustling of feet upon gravel is the loudest sound to penetrate the air. Sherlock strikes it up again with, "Why the sudden interest in me, Watson?" Because he can't read John's mind. He can read body language, sign language, Russian, German, an assortment of other languages, including the language of evidence, but he cannot read John, not like he can read everyone else.

"You don't talk about yourself much."

The words fall as a bit of a lie, but Sherlock can only perceive that to a certain extent. John wants to learn more about his flatmate. Maybe it's because of common curiosity. Maybe it's because Sherlock is such an enigma himself. But John does know there's something in him that wonders, and is a bit jealous of, his past relationships.

They've been living together for a bit over a year now, perhaps, and John knows about Mycroft. Sherlock speaks little of his parents, if he ever had any or knew them. His school days are practically non-existent. It's like Sherlock did not exist before he became a consulting detective, and that brings John more questions than it does answers. Silly questions, especially. Who was his best friend when he was in school? Who was his first kiss? Where and how did he grow up? So hearing about past girlfriends is a bit of a treat.

And the jealousy is something he pins on the thought of a woman being closer to Sherlock than John himself could be. Petty, really. He's almost entirely convinced it's on a friendship level, but some twinge in his chest says otherwise, but he suppresses that. It doesn't mean much, he knows that.

"No, I suppose I don't..." His words drift off like a cloud through the sky, there and then gone, vanishing into the horizon or behind a building...

"No, you don't." Watson stands slightly behind Sherlock as the detective stands still, his fingers twitching and his fists clenching within his jacket pockets; the strain at his wrists shows that much. John's surprised at how much he does observe now that he spends more time with Sher-

-lock...

Suddenly all of his thoughts have been sucked away at the touch of two hands upon the sides of his face and Sherlock's eyes piercing his own, that blue, that startling blue, looking right at him and staring into him in a way that John has never experienced before. No words are exchanged in the moment, just this intense staring, his contest of trying to figure out who's thinking what. Sherlock cannot read John's emotions, his eyes don't display them like most other people. And to John, Sherlock is a riddle hidden in a puzzle.

And it takes a moment, but John takes his chance, his leap of faith, because if Sherlock dove in, maybe John needs to get the ball rolling.

That twinge in his chest has been there for a while, whenever Sherlock walks out of his room naked, whenever he's kind enough to ring Mrs. Hudson for breakfast, whenever he says please. There's this little nagging feeling of something higher than respect and more than friendship, but he's been reluctant to give it a name.

In this moment, he thinks he may understand why he could be conceivably jealous of his flatmate's former girlfriends. Some of them may have been able to do this.

He tilts his head and gives it a try, leaning in an letting their lips meet, bridging that final gap that could mean something more. It's tentative at first, for both of them, but it's Sherlock who first asks for entrance, knowing the human body's triggers and responses. His tongue slips inside John's mouth and suddenly their stumbling together to get braced against a wall. It's Watson who finds himself pinned, but he doesn't mind, he's got a brilliant, beautiful man above him, one who may have some semblance of a heart beating inside his chest. A man whom he has great respect for, a man who is larger than life itself and can read the world better than anyone else.

And still, it is Sherlock who breaks it off first, catching his breath and staring into John's eyes and continuing to hold his face. He cannot speak, there are no words to be said.

Watson, on the other hand, does have words. "That was what you wanted, right?" he asks, very reluctantly, almost timidly. Because the worst Sherlock could do was blame the human emotional spectrum for eliciting the wrong physical response...

"You can sleep in my bed tonight," murmurs Sherlock before leaning away and giving Watson one last look over, really looking him over, like he was some sort of art or masterpiece. Something of a smile, maybe a smirk, lay upon his sharp and beautiful features. In a heartbeat, it'd disappeared. "Now make-up, we need to trace that make-up." With a clap, the detective was moving, moving, moving, and gone in a flash.

John stands there. He's never kissed a man before, so the whole concept feels new and foreign and wrong in every way. But it's good. He enjoyed that. He never believed he could love a man. Never such a special man either. He woke himself from the surprised stupor and decided to carry on. Nothing would be more important to Sherlock than the case. Not even him.

But they were certainly getting somewhere.

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**A/N: Okay, I tried so hard to get John's little stutter thing right when he asks questions and to draw out Sherlock's sentences in clipped fragments. I don't know how good it turned out, but I'd appreciate some feedback. Constructive criticism is welcomed, thanks for reading.**

**~Sky**


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